A Pakistan court ruled on Tuesday ex-prime minister Imran Khan’s party can contest elections using its cricket bat logo, lawyers said, winning the jailed opposition leader a rare reprieve before polls due in February.
In a nation where the adult literacy rate is just 58%, according to World Bank data, election symbols are vital campaign tools for differentiating candidates on ballot papers.
But last week, the election commission stripped former cricket star Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of the right to use its icon.
“The election commission’s ruling against PTI, in which its election symbol, the cricket bat, was unjustly revoked through an illegal order, has been suspended,” said PTI lawyer Syed Ali Zafar.
“It has been further directed that our symbol be reinstated,” Zafar told reporters outside a high court in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where PTI lodged an appeal.
Zafar said the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had given its verdict in the case as if it was an “opponent” of the PTI instead of a just arbitrator and also questioned why the lawyers from parties or the government were present in today’s hearing. “It seemed that they were against the PTI together with the ECP,” he said.
Zafar said that the ECP should remain “independent and free”.
PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said the Peshawar High Court eliminated the “conspiracy against the PTI, its symbol and its supporters” with its order. He added that the high court had restored the trust of the party and the nation in the judiciary.
“It seemed as if the ECP were against us, it did not feel as if they were fair,” PTI lawyer Ali Zafar said while speaking to the media outside the PHC alongside Gohar Khan, adding that a symbol is a fundamental right.
“The way lawyers from different parties were arguing in courts today, it seemed as if they were collaborating against PTI. One should not get this perspective, they should stay independent” he said.
Gohar said there was a “great need” for the suspension order since nomination papers for the general elections have been filed and the scrutiny process is under way.
He said the PTI had sent its priority list and all the provinces accepted it other than Punjab, adding that the final list issued included all political parties other than the PTI.
The PTI chairman said the party would request the ECP to ensure elections were free, fair and transparent, adding that the party had always expressed confidence in the watchdog.
“Our trust was hurt, justice wasn’t done with us but we were discriminated against.”
Pakistan’s election commission revoked PTI’s right to use the symbol in polls set for February 8 after it held that the party failed to hold internal elections in accordance with its constitution.
But PTI said the decision was the latest legal hurdle erected in a campaign to prevent its 71-year-old figurehead from contesting re-election.
The hugely popular Khan was controversially ousted last year after falling out with Pakistan’s powerful military leaders, then waging an unprecedented campaign of defiance against them.
He is currently jailed and facing numerous cases and allegations that he leaked classified state documents in the so-called cipher case, a crime carrying a prison term of up to 14 years or even the death penalty.
The Intercept, a prominent American online news outlet, however, published the full text of the cipher in August that it said it had obtained from a military source. Two successive National Security Committee meetings, including one presided over by his rival Shahbaz Sharif with the top military brass, also backed Khan’s allegation of American interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs.
After Khan’s arrest this year sparked unrest, PTI has been the subject of a widespread and often brutal crackdown, with leading party figures either jailed or forced to leave the party.
PTI turned in nomination papers for Khan on Friday, but they may be challenged on the basis of the electoral commission having disqualified him from office earlier this year.